Portland State Vanguard January 17,2013

One coin to rule them all

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Portland State University Portland State University Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013 | vol. 67 no. 30

Latin Night fires up Portland State

Green ideas: from plans to reality 2013 Solutions Generator award winners announced Andrew Morse Vanguard staff

“An event like this totally reflects our priorities here at Portland State,” Wiewel said. “This may be the first Latin Night, but I’m sure it will not be the last.”

After the president’s address, PSU’s Latina Dance Club took to the floor in a flurry of red shirts and swirling skirts. After their first dance, students ran into the crowd and brought unsuspecting onlookers onto the stage for a rousing rendition of “Cachondea.”

There are countless ways to be “green,” and now, several groups of students have an opportunity to contribute to the cause.

The Institute for Sustainable Solutions at Portland State recently announced the award recipients in their 2013 Solutions Generator program, which seeks to engage students with devising their own sustainability projects around campus and the broader community.

The program, which began four years ago, awarded funding to a dozen groups for various projects that will manifest over the next two terms. “[Solutions Generator is] an opportunity for students to engage in community projects outside the classroom,” said Laura Gleim, communications coordinator for ISS. This year’s projects take many forms, such as a group devoted to raising farmworker awareness, a research project on how to better incorporate sustainability into the undergraduate experience and a film looking at social sustainability in Cuba, to name a few.

Angela Hamilton, coordinator for ISS, said that students submitted a total of 22 proposals.

Groups that didn’t receive funding up-front were designated “endorsed projects,” whose members will work with Hamilton to improve their submissions and potentially receive funding in the future.

There weren’t as many proposals submitted this year as in years past but, Hamilton said, “The idea to get

See latin Night on page 2

See solutions on page 5

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Dancers Quincy Davis, left, Jose Mora and Natasha Strode perform a traditional Aztec dance at the first Latin Night at PSU.

Las Mujeres celebrates Latin culture with an eye toward PSU community Matthew Ellis Vanguard staff

Students who attended Portland State’s first Latin Night were given an inside look at the tastes, sounds and customs of Latin America.

The event, held in the Smith Memorial Student Union on Friday, brought roughly 250 people

together to dance, eat and learn about the array of Latin American countries represented in PSU’s diverse student body.

The event was hosted by Las Mujeres de la Raza, a student group that focuses on the needs of Hispanic, Latina and Chicana women by uniting and empowering women of all nationalities and ethnicities.

“There is a really strong Latin community here on the PSU campus,” explained Rosie Zuriaga, a junior social work major and codirector of Las Mujeres.

“We wanted to organize an event highlighting different areas all across Latin America, to bring these groups together and celebrate our diversity and community.”

Zuriaga’s comments were echoed

by PSU President Wim Wiewel in his opening address to the attendees at Latin Night.

Latino student enrollment at PSU has increased 99 percent over the past five years, according to Wiewel.

This, he explained, makes PSU the top Latino-attended university in the state of Oregon.

PSU’s campus will expand to South Waterfront next year Construction of the Collaborative Life Sciences Building underway Ryan Voelker Vanguard staff

Oregon Health and Science University and the Oregon University System have teamed up on a $295 million project, bringing a brand-new facility to Portland State students in 2014.

It’s called the Collaborative Life Sciences Building, and that’s not just a clever title. The new building aims to raise scientific education and collaboration to an unprecedented level.

The CLSB will facilitate opportunities for students from PSU, OHSU

and Oregon State University to study together under one roof.

Students will also have the opportunity to work with some of the region’s top science experts in stateof-the-art classrooms, lecture halls and labs.

“PSU is co-owner of this building, and it will become part of our campus,” said Dan Zalkow, executive director of Campus Planning, Construction and Real Estate at PSU. “There won’t be an increase in lab fees for courses taken at CLSB versus the main campus,” he added.

The CLSB is being constructed on 19 acres of land at the South Waterfront, donated to OHSU by the Schnitzer family.

“The faculty is extremely enthusiastic about the collaboration with PSU,” said Mark Williams, vice president of Campus Development and Administration at OHSU. “There will be undergraduate students working with or near scientists who are doing cutting-edge research.”

The CLSB will house approximately 185,000 square feet of education space as well as a new 400-seat lecture hall, which will be the largest on PSU’s campus.

One major benefit of the extra space is a sizable increase in classroom capacity.

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See building on page 4

The new building will deliver bigger classrooms and a 400-seat lecture hall.

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Students get handson with PSU.tv Duncan Ros

Eight years after its inception as Viking Vision, PSU Television remains a resource for students looking to develop a wide range of professional skills.

Now, PSU.tv is looking to expand its services.

Even if you aren’t studying film or communications, you can still learn and get handson experience at PSU.tv.

“You can be a marketing, business or even chemistry major and be gaining skills such as public speaking, working in a group, setting

deadlines and learning about real-world processes,” said PSU.tv Manager Justin Brown.

As a business major and advocate for the PSU community, Brown would like to see the various publications working together cohesively and generating revenue from ad sales and sponsorship.

“There is a specific audience for each publication. If we split the revenue we will have more resources to offer students,” Brown said.

Rather than operating as a single publication in isolation, Brown claims that

university publications can work together and build student recognition.

The desire to collaborate with other campus organizations in an attempt to broaden student skills and resources is shared by other staff members at PSU.tv.

“We are here for the students,” Senior Editor Jyunmi Hatcher said. “Anything we can do to help students get more out of their college experience is what we’re all about.”

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Amanda martin-tully, news editor of the Rearguard, interviews the Kinky Brothers after their Live at Lunch set on Jan. 15.

Student helps WRC bolsters services refugees fight cultural taboos New director initiates changes to orientation and campus safety Jaime Dunkle

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Kaela O’Brien

Justin brown, PSU.tv’s manager, watches over the Live at Lunch stream while camera operator Dana Hanson films the performance on Jan. 15. in 2011, the group had to prove itself to the PSU community.

“We now have a foundation that will help us build to the next level,” Hatcher said.

The next level, according to Hatcher, is to offer expanded services as a publication, much like other television networks. This enhancement would include more serial programs that cater to the wide range of students on campus.

Currently, PSU.tv has three weekly segments on their lineup: Live at Lunch every Tuesday and Thursday and a segment dedicated to the Debate Club on Fridays.

The Live at Lunch series will consist of segments dedicated to live music performances at PSU, with additional interviewing and reporting done by staffers.

“The Live at Lunch series will help us produce more

live content,” Hatcher said.

“Students will get the entertainment of the band, and we will have an opportunity to go more in-depth with the music and the bands.”

The live streaming content will be an essential component of the publication’s progress.

Joel Cano, a sophomore film student and friend of Hatcher, has had good experiences participating in PSU.tv.

“They’re very professional across the board,” he said.

“It’s unfortunate that they don’t have more of a budget.”

The resources at the publication have helped Cano to learn and produce his own film content.

“I’m personally pleased that I can be a part of their content,” he said. “The more decent content they have, the more it helps PSU and PSU Television. I’m all for it.”

latin night from page 1

Food, music and culture on the agenda In addition to an evening of entertainment, Las Mujeres created an educational expo, lining the room with posters and interactive tables featuring tidbits about the diverse countries that make up Latin America, including Brazil, Puerto Rico and Guatemala.

Business major Hector Villegas manned a table with information about charreria, an equestrian sport that has flourished in Mexico since the 16th century. According to Villegas, charreria has grown as Mexico’s national sport, slowly making its way into southwestern America.

Wearing the outfit of a charreria participant, Villegas tied his love for the sport with his opportunities at PSU and extolled the importance of events like Latin Night.

“I think PSU needs to embrace the diverse groups which constitute our university, and the pride we have in it,” he said. After graduation, Villegas hopes to set up his own business in the equestrian world.

Many of the celebrating students were just as enthusiastic about their opportunities as students at PSU. Juan Ramirez, a senior in the psychology department, explained his desire to return to Mexico after graduation, either as an intern or educator.

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Linda Roman, codirector of Las Mujeres, plans to attend law school after she completes her political science degree at Portland State.

Roman seemed unable to stop for a breath all night, as she was flanked by friends and acquaintances from the moment she left the stage to introduce Wiewel at the beginning of the event. Still, it didn’t seem to faze her.

“It was very important to make this evening very familyfriendly and interactive,” she explained. “We want everyone to feel welcome. That is an important part of Latin culture: being inclusive, and well-fed.”

But even as food vanished from plates, the sense of inclusiveness continued to float through the air, carried by the music of Grupo Raices and Dina y Los Rumberos, as a mix of faces and personalities blended into a cloud of celebration.

It was a reminder to all that considerable strength in a student body like PSU’s lies not only in new educational opportunities but also in an acute awareness of the diverse culture it encompasses.

Wiewel reminded everyone of that sentiment as he finished his opening remarks on Friday: “Here, you represent not just yourself, not just your family, not just the university, but the future of this entire region.”

Rachel Lidskug, a PSU dance professor, dances the tango with Mike Eblen.

Michael Martinez shakes a maraca in his fist during a dance performance.

Vanguard staff

Portland State student Behjat Sedighi has spent the past 12 years working with refugees and immigrants battling mental illness in an effort to provide them a second chance at happiness.

Sedighi, a mental health counselor, is only one of many psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors and therapists working with OHSU’s Intercultural Psychiatric Program, which aims to provide mental health services for immigrants, refugees and ethnic communities.

“Big taboo and big stigma come with mental illness in many cultures.”

Behjat Sedighi

Fluent in Farsi and Kurdish, Sedighi works mostly with adults and children who have come to America from Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. Whatever country one is from, all cultures treat mental illness differently, she explained.

“Big taboo and big stigma come with mental illness in many cultures,” Sedighi said.

These taboos and stigmas are what IPP specializes in dealing with.

With a staff that includes 16 counselors, eight part-time physicians and services offered in more than 15 languages, IPP has been providing mental illness treatment that is highly culturally sensitive for more than 35 years.

Each group works with a counselor from a shared country or ethnic background.

“Somali refugees get counseled by a Somali counselor, [and] the number-one benefit of this is the knowledge of their language and culture,” she said. Understanding cultural differences helps physicians make the right diagnoses.

“I love working with people, and I love working with refugees and immigrants, [who are] so vulnerable. It feels good to help.”

Behjat Sedighi

all photos by miles sanguinetti/VANGUARD STAFf

Once diagnosed, a team of both psychiatrists and counselors work together to treat

each client’s mental illness.

Treatment can be a variety of different approaches, from group therapy to individual counseling, as well as medication management.

Beyond simply treating the mental illness, IPP makes it a priority to ensure that their clients have a better grasp on the illness itself. At IPP, “people get more educated and have a better understanding of mental illness,” Sedighi said.

She explained that better understanding paired with correct treatment helps people feel normal.

“It also helps with getting a job and holding a job,” Sedighi said. This can be difficult enough with cultural and language differences.

While the beginning of the journey of treating a mental illness may seem difficult and unfamiliar, Sedighi explains, it is the outcome that she lives for.

“When a client first comes in stressed or broken, without a job, then after treatment comes back and says, ‘I didn’t think this could help,’ or ‘I didn’t know I could feel this normal’—that is my reward,” she said.

Having emigrated from Iran herself, Sedighi says she relates deeply with these people and found herself drawn to the work she does.

“I love working with people, and I love working with refugees and immigrants, [who are] so vulnerable. It feels good to help.”

She also notes that she has always felt the need to contribute to society by helping others. After double-majoring in Persian language and psychology back home in Iran, once in Portland Sedighi eventually fed that need to help by working for OHSU’s IPP program.

Sedighi returned to school to pursue a bachelor’s degree in psychology at PSU. IPP director Dr. Paul Leung describes Sedighi as “a very experienced and dedicated mental health professional,” noting that she is also in a leadership role that helps IPP monitor the quality of care given to its clients.

Sedighi’s message to students and faculty at PSU is, “Don’t just ignore your coworker or classmate if they are talking or showing behavior that is abnormal for that individual.” Instead, she said, let them know that there is help.

“Do not be afraid to seek help when you don’t feel right— even if it is a mental illness.”

Jessica Amo was named director of the Women’s Resource Center on Jan. 1, and in the past couple of weeks alone she’s already filled her plate with a plethora of projects.

In addition to WRC-hosted events, students can expect more services to be made available to victims of sexual assault, as well as changes to new student orientation.

“The Campus Public Safety Office has been working to create a new position; it will be a detective position,” Amo said. “And that person is 100 percent dedicated to responding to students that want to report about sexual assault.”

Former Portland Police Bureau detective Matt Horton is CPSO’s new sexual assault officer.

Amo spent the last four years as the WRC’s assistant coordinator. She has 15 years of experience focusing on domestic and sexual violence issues.

When Amo worked at the Portland Women’s Crisis Line, she was part of their restraining order program. She was also an advocate at the Portland Police Bureau.

As a graduate student, Amo applied for her first position at WRC as part of her practicum.

She’s been part of changes within the WRC since the beginning of her residency.

“When I first came [to the WRC], the Interpersonal Violence Program was essentially [led by] a part-time graduate assistant,” Amo said. “Over the four years that I was here, we were able to grow that position into a full-time interpersonal violence advocate.”

The WRC is also working toward becoming a part of the mandatory new student orientation. They are developing a training module required for new students.

“Lots of folks don’t know about us until they need us,” Amo said. “We would like to shift that to ensure that all students know about us when they get here, before anything happens.”

Dr. Rebecca J. Hannagan, a visiting associate professor of political science, will be a guest speaker at a WRC event on Jan. 23. As part of a lecture series, Hannagan will talk about varying degrees of exploitation, hence the title, “Bodily Exploitation: An examination of rape

Daniel Johnston/VANGUARD STAFF

jessica amo, new director of the Women’s Resource Center, responds to a crisis call about a student who may have been raped. in the U.S. military.”

“As citizens of the United States, we invest in the military,” Hannagan said. “There is systematic violence against a certain group of people within that organization—I think it’s an issue that does, in fact, affect everyone.”

Hannagan is on sabbatical from Northern Illinois University, where she is involved with women’s studies, family violence and sexual assault in addition to political science.

“I have been interested in— just generally speaking—the issue of violence against women,” Hannagan said. “That tends to be something I care a lot about.”

When she first arrived at

PSU, Hannagan wanted to be part of the campus community, and thus discovered the WRC. “It’s a great environment, where you can go and relax and study and even talk to other like-minded students,” Hannagan said. “They have a lot of excellent programs, and great discussions happen over there, but it’s also a very chill environment.”

Cristal Vann, a PSU senior, has volunteered at WRC for the past year. She transferred from Portland Community College, and compared their WRC to Portland State’s WRC. “At PCC, it’s very small and not inviting. There is no community,” Vann said. “But here, there’s a large, open space, and you can meet other women.”

Library holds comic gems Dark Horse collection puts ‘American art form’ on display Mary Breaden Vanguard Staff

Portland State students taking a break from studying might find themselves browsing the Dark Horse Comics collection on the fourth floor of Millar Library.

Mike Richardson, founder and president of the Milwaukie-based comic book company, hopes so.

“I was an art major [at PSU] and I was very influenced by some groundbreaking artists at that time,” Richardson said.

“If I [had] had more ease in accessing comics, it would have been a great advantage to me as an art student.”

John Bartolomeo, a student worker in the library stacks, is more than happy to recommend parts of the Dark Horse collection to unfamiliar readers.

“Have you read Wondermark?” Bartolomeo asked, his eyes lighting up as he pulled the hardcover volume by David Malki from the shelf. This particular comic, he said, was created from woodcuts and engravings.

Talks began among PSU’s librarians in 2005 to set up a research collection of Dark

Horse comics, graphic novels and other merchandise in the library, as well as a circulating library of everything Dark Horse has published.

Michael Bowman, PSU’s comics librarian, was involved in talks about the collection, along with Helen Spalding, Portland State’s university librarian at the time. He said that the negotiations took until fall of 2008 to settle.

As to the task of keeping the Dark Horse collection circulating, Bartolomeo mentioned that he’s found a surprising number of Bettie Page comics in the men’s room. However, the most popular type of comic in the collection is anime, he said.

Bowman noted that the collection’s placement, on the curves of the library, often means that students who are studying or want a break from what they’re working on happen upon the materials.

In the last two years, Bowman said, materials from the collection—which includes about 8,000 items—have been checked out more than 4,000 times.

To bring the collection more traffic beyond recreational

karl kuchs/VANGUARD STAFF

john bartolomeo shelves and organizes the Dark Horse collection at the PSU library. readers, Bowman and Richardson both hope that the university will do more to incorporate the collection into the PSU curriculum.

When he was a student at PSU in the ’70s, Richardson said that most people within academia held comics in low estimation.

“People would raise an eyebrow if you were to buy [comics],” he said. “They were seen as not being literary enough to be taken seriously.”

Richardson said that, as a student, he would make sure

to buy his comics in bookstores where he knew he wouldn’t be recognized.

He lamented that American comics have been underrepresented among historians and librarians until recent years.

“This is a very American art form,” he said. “[Comics] have great authenticity as a storytelling form.”

Up on the fourth floor of the library, this art form will remain available indefinitely to visitors, whether they read the comics with a mind for seriousness or for pleasure.

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Anarchist shifts focus to community

Adam wickham/VANGUARD STAFf

Jim Kelsheimer, who goes by the name “Pong Wolfgun,” sorts mail in PSU’s receiving center, where he works.

Grad student recalls being arrested for civil disobedience Cassandra Moore Vanguard staff

Portland State graduate student Jim “Pong Wolfgun” Kelsheimer was first arrested for civil disobedience in Philadelphia in the summer of 2000, the year that marked the beginning of his threeyear-long travel stint across the country, from riot to rally to protest.

Along with 390 other people, Kelsheimer was arrested while protesting against capitalism, the death penalty and a variety of other issues at the Republican National Convention.

Kelsheimer was detained for 17 days, during which he participated in a hunger strike and jail solidarity—meaning he withheld his real name and would only identify himself as “John Doe.” He called it the most lifechanging protest he has ever attended.

“It was and is traumatic,” said Kelsheimer, who is still processing his arrest, despite the fact that it occurred 12 years ago.

As a result of his incarceration, Kelsheimer said he endured a near mental breakdown and that, because of his experience with police brutality, he believes he has post-traumatic stress disorder. “[Some of us] were held in a maximum-security prison for three days,” he said. “There were bunk beds with neon lights that stayed on for 23 hours a day, and you were allowed half an hour outside each day.”

In an article published by the American Civil Liberties Union, the late Stefan Presser,

legal director for the ACLU of Pennsylvania in 2000, said many violations of protestors’ rights occurred during the 2000 RNC. Kelsheimer said his charges were eventually dismissed because of a lack of evidence.

Before participating in rallies and riots, Kelsheimer was raised in an abusive home on various military bases. He’s been anti-military since elementary school.

“When I was in the fifth grade, my mom married a GI and we moved to an army base right before the first Gulf War,” Kelsheimer said. “I would wake up to [the sound of] attack formation helicopters and army cadence, which is really brutal, like ‘We are gonna kill them Commies!’

“I got to do things like shoot machine guns at decommissioned army vehicles,” he continued. “[My stepdad was] like, ‘Hey, you’re a boy, you’re going to join the military just like your stepdad.’ I was like, ‘No.’” Though his arrest in 2000 was his first for civil disobedience, Kelsheimer is no stranger to riots or riot cops.

For three years, from 2000 to 2003, he hitchhiked, hopped freight trains and used a fake Greyhound bus pass to travel all across the country, from protest to protest, from Louisville to Detroit, from Toronto to Minneapolis.

“I have watched footage of myself [on YouTube] getting shot [with rubber bullets and a tear gas canister] in Quebec City and arrested,” Kelsheimer recalled. “Rubber bullets are, like, four inches solid—they’re rib-crackers.”

“My friends have been telling me for a while that I have PTSD. Last night, literally, I acknowledged, yeah, I do have PTSD,” he said.

One video from a 2002 demonstration in Quebec City

features protesters in gas masks tossing tear gas canisters back at lines of retaliating cops. In another scene, a young man aims a slingshot at police while other protestors throw a large piece of chain link fence at the cops, who in turn shove people to the ground and pin them to the pavement with their feet.

Most of the protesters, who appear to be quite young, scream and resist as they’re being arrested.

“I’m not bragging about that stuff,” Kelsheimer said. “I was a very different person back then. I’m sure all the violence around me [as a child] didn’t [give] me the tools to process things, other than with anger.”

After years of traveling, he unintentionally landed in Portland around 2003. He attended PSU and got a bachelor’s degree in German.

Currently, he is enrolled in the master’s program in teaching.

These days, Kelsheimer still identifies as an anarchist, and attends and organizes activist meetings and rallies often, but he said he would now like to focus less on demonstrating and more on building community.

“Building community is a lot more dangerous to the state than rioting,” he said. “Forming networks with the people on your block to take care of each other will assist in the collapse of the state.

“If we can figure out how to take care of each other and the earth in nonoppressive ways, the state will serve no purpose in our lives.”

You can see Kelsheimer out on the town with his DJ group, Cascadia Soul Alliance. They have a show at EastBurn every first Friday of the month, and will appear Saturday, Jan. 19, at the Mark Woolley Gallery at the Pioneer Place Mall.

building from page 1

New building aims to meet LEED Platinum certification standards “Some science courses are really limited,” explained Mai Moua, a student studying health sciences at PSU. “It will be nice to have bigger classes so you don’t have to wait so long to get in.”

The building design itself has been a major collaborative effort and is being led by architecture firm SERA. The goal is to create a building that is effectively used and aesthetically inviting.

“The atrium will be all glass and designed to put education on display to the community,” said Alene Davis, architect project leader at SERA. “It will be a hub of learning activity visible from the street.”

The CLSB is on a fast track for usage and will be opened in phases. It is expected to be available for use to PSU students by spring of 2014.

Other portions of the building, such as OHSU’s School of Dentistry in the Skourtes Tower, will open at later dates.

Construction of the CLSB is being funded by a unique public/private partnership model with a total budget of $295 million.

Approximately $210 million of that funding is provided by state bonds, OHSU and TriMet. The rest came from private donations.

Although expediting completion and staying within the budget are major considerations for the project, sustainability efforts have been at the forefront of its design.

“We’re working to make this a LEED [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design] Platinum [certified] building, meaning it will have the highest rating of energy efficiency and environmental standards that we can get,” Williams said.

Meeting LEED Platinum certification standards will include employing storm water management, ecoroofs and atrium heat recovery.

But among the highest areas of sustainability will be the building’s accessibility.

“Part of the design plan was to provide alternative transportation methods, for PSU students to go back and forth,” Davis said.

The Portland Streetcar already has an established line

connecting the main campus to CLSB, and is free for PSU students.

There will also be several hundred bike spaces for those who ride to the building, as well as a bike-sharing program with stations at both locations.

For those who need to drive to CLSB, a two-level parking garage with approximately 400 spaces will be included with the building.

“Discussions with OHSU are still in progress, but we aim to have hourly, daily and permit parking options available at CLSB,” Zalkow said.

The project has also spurred other new projects, which are helping to stimulate the city’s economy by providing construction jobs.

One such project is TriMet’s current construction of a new bridge and MAX line, which will have a station directly in front of CLSB. For all the people working hard to bring this project to fruition, the positive effects CLSB will have on Portland appear to be keeping them motivated.

“We’re producing infrastructure and the capacity to educate people in the future,” Williams said. “We’re going to wind up with some really wonderful assets for the community when we’re done.”

New class: The Multiracial Experience Gwen Shaw Vanguard Staff

The eye of the storm.

That’s what Black Studies professor Ethan Johnson calls the Northwest, when it comes to multiracialism.

“The Northwest has some of the highest rates, within the black community in particular, of marrying outside of their race—in the whole country,” Johnson said.

This fact, along with many others, is discussed in Johnson’s course, titled “The Multiracial Experience.”

Johnson explained that the course has three focuses: interracial relationships, both friend and romantic; transracial adoptions; and people who identify as, or are identified as, multiracial.

With a primary focus on discussion, the class looks into these topics and considers how gender, class and sexuality play roles in the multiracial experience. In class, students will look at and discuss poetry,

commercials, pop culture, music and documentaries.

“I see myself as a facilitator of discussion,” Johnson said.

Each student will read about 40 to 70 pages a week and write a one-page response. The readings come from various sources, including academic articles, magazine articles and a novel, called The Girl Who Fell From The Sky, which was written by a multiracial woman who grew up in Portland.

Johnson said he believes this class is important because race is a very contemporary topic.

“What’s important about the class is that through multiraciality, we can look first at race as a social construction and then at some really important issues,” Johnson said. Those issues include the idea that people tend to think of love and friendship as not having a lot to do with race, and that it’s just about attraction.

But Johnson points out that “in fact, we know that these things are very political, and power is all a part of that.”

He also said that multiracial people generally experience the world differently and in some unique ways, and this class offers a way to look at how race and power shapes lives.

Johnson said that even in the Black Studies Department, this is the most diverse class he has ever taught on campus.

“There are white people in the class, but I would say there are more people of color in the class than white people—though I may be wrong,” Johnson said. He says the class contains black, Asian, Latino and Pacific Islander students.

Johnson said that many of the students are taking the class because they can in some way identify with the topic personally and they want to deepen their understanding.

5 3

Every week, the Vanguard interviews members of the Portland State community in the Park Blocks and asks them a timely question.

This week’s question:

“How effective do you think Portland State’s student government is?”

Gwen Shaw/Vanguard staff

Dan Adler, who coaches PSU’s debate team, thinks that the Associated Students of Portland State University is doing a great job. Last term, he was glad to see them put on political events and said they had a really good get-out-the-vote campaign. “In political years like that, I think it’s really important to have student advocates getting out on campus,” he said.

“In off-years, when there’s no election going on, they don’t do much...I think the student vote mattered a lot this last election, and I think it’s very important for our voices to be heard.”

Being new to campus, Gloria Trujillo, 35, said she was busy trying to figure out school and never really learned a whole lot about student government. “I don’t know much about it,” she said. “I don’t know what they do, so I’m not very sure.” She also said that she voted in the student body presidential race, but she doesn’t know what the president’s role is. Trujillo suggested a tab on the PSU webpage about student government to help people understand who they are and what they do. “It might be there, I just haven’t seen it,” she said.

Rachael Goldstein, 22, said that even though she has a lot of friends involved in student government, she’s not really sure what they do. The senior, who is double-majoring in art and Spanish, said, “What I can tell is that they’re trying to get more stuff rolling. I think I’ve heard in the past that the school didn’t really let them have very much control over things, so they weren’t very effective, but they’re trying to change that as far as what I’ve heard.”

Alexandra Olson, 20, admitted that she doesn’t really know a lot about student government, but she feels their productivity depends heavily on how the university deals with them, “[b]ecause from what I’ve seen, that’s kind of what makes more of a difference. Even if they are willing to make a huge difference and they put in the time, it’s really if the school gives them that much power,” Olson said. all photos by gwen shaw/VANGUARD STAFf

solutions from page 1

Projects prompt big-picture approach, sustainable thinking miles sanguinetti/VANGUARD STAFf

The collaborative life sciences building is currently undergoing construction at the South Waterfront. The project will be completed sometime next year.

Correction

A Jan. 15 news story titled “Turnover plagues ASPSU” contained an error.

Katie Jundt’s correct title is interim assistant director of Student Activities and Leadership Programs.

Send us your tips and story ideas Email us news@PSUVANGUARD.COM

more students but have more opportunities for richer experience.”

The Solutions Generator team worked with students over the course of the submission process.

Next, groups submitted abstracts, and then attended a proposal-writing workshop.

The full proposals were due in November, and a selection committee consisting of 10 students, faculty, staff and community members decided which projects would be given funding. The winners were announced Dec. 13.

Project criteria included relevance, timeliness, leadership and learning opportunity, feasibility, longevity and whether the project fell under the rubric of holistic sustainability.

Hamilton described holistic sustainability as symbolized by three overlapping circles, much like the Olympic rings, each one representing economy, environment and community.

“Something isn’t ‘sustainability’ if it doesn’t meet in the

center of those circles,” she said.

The goal is to get students to see the whole picture, including rethinking details (such as vending for events and travel) in a sustainable way, like by patronizing businesses that make Earth-conscious choices. For example, buying Pizza Hut pizza for a group meeting would not be considered sustainable, but pizza from locally owned Hot Lips would be.

Gleim summed up the ultimate purpose behind many of the projects as engaging the community in an active research project that makes a difference while the project is actually happening. Groups were strongly encouraged to find a campus or community partner before submitting their proposals.

Along with the 12 funded projects, ISS also chose three interns and a student staff member to work on Solutions Generator this year.

Nichole Martin, a senior social science major, is this year’s program assistant.

She first became involved

with the program last year through a project.

Martin described the formation of her project as an outgrowth of a class she took called “Race and Sustainability,” taught

by Black Studies professor Pedro Ferbel-Azcarate. Having little to no background in sustainability, she was intrigued by the title and wanted to find out what sustainability really meant.

Through her experience, she realized that sustainability can come in many hues of green, even if people don’t necessarily recognize what they’re doing as sustainable.

Martin noted that people won’t be engaged in sustainability if they don’t see someone like them practicing it, or don’t have the means of understanding the concepts on their own terms.

“I call myself the Batman of sustainability [because I’m] trying to decode that language to make it easy to understand,” she said.

As she plunges into her work as program assistant, her goal is to open dialogues about sustainability.

“It’s as simple as you make it and what you choose to do,” Martin said.

6

Arts & Culture • Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013 • VANGUARD

VANGUARD ••Thursday, Thursday, THURSDAY,OCTOBER TUESDAY, JANUARY Jan. Nov. FEBRUARY JANUARY 17, 8, 2013 2012 10, 25, 26, 2, 2012 2011 ••2012 ARTS ARTS •• •OPINION OPINION &&ARTS CULTURE CULTURE & CULTURE

ARTS & CULTURE

EDITOR: Louie Opatz ARTS@PSUVANGUARD.COM 503-725-5694

A voice that’s Rocky $mooth A$AP Rocky embraces his eccentricities on new album, Long.Live.A$AP Mike Diallo Vanguard staff

Keeping in mind that we’re talking about an industry encompassing basketball moguls and Kardashian lovers, it’s still safe to say that A$AP Rocky’s eccentricities set the Harlem lyricist apart from others in the rap game.

Along with dropping a killer debut mixtape (Live. Love. A$AP) and releasing the hit singles “Goldie” and “Fuckin’ Problems,” Rocky has trumpeted his unique tastes in apparel in various magazines this last year. Rocky is equally at home on the sold-out arena stages of Drake’s Club Paradise Tour and in the audience of a high-end New York fashion show.

So now that the 24-year-old rapper is finally releasing his long-delayed debut studio album, Long.Live.A$AP, does the style trump the substance?

The album opens with the titular track, and Rocky immediately sets a precedent by hitting the listener with chaotic streams of rhyme about dark and unsettling moments of his past bridged by a calm and melodious chorus confident about the future.

Eventually, the verses start to settle into more of a pattern, still malevolent but in line with the sound of the chorus. The listener is left feeling like Rocky is aware of the past that defines him and the legacy he wants to create for the future.

But more than anything, Long.Live.A$AP is about what the MC best illustrates: his present.

For A$AP Rocky, that means living the typical staples of rap stardom, and a number of his lyrics unapologetically flaunt his affinity for money, women and various mind-altering substances. The subjects never get old, and some of

the best moments of the album come in doubletake-worthy celebrations of hedonism.

It’s mainly because Rocky applies his clever and biting tone so naturally to both the flow and content of songs like “Goldie,” “PMW” and “Fashion Killa” that they become a stage for him to reference and comment on messages designed to be over-the-top.

Even in the album’s most ridiculous moments, listeners feel like they are sharing in the jokes of a self-aware rapper rather than submitting to the displays of an intolerable narcissist.

On the flip side, there are also the songs in which Rocky faces his darker thoughts. In “LVL,” we are given insight into a spiteful and troubled mind that seems homicidally disgusted with its present situation.

Murder turns to suicide in “Phoenix,” where Rocky dwells on the idea of being constantly criticized as a celebrity. It’s great that he doesn’t lose his likable personality in these instances of introspection, but these self-involved thoughts occasionally lack enough maturity to convey memorable messages.

Later in the album, Rocky produces more interesting content with “Hell” and “Suddenly,” which look at the pressures and mistaken perceptions of those who’ve watched him rise to fame. The latter offering contains a moment of jarring lyrical quickness that works well with the consciousness of the lyrics.

While both songs tell a familiar story, they address the ideas in completely different ways, speaking to the variation in the rapper’s own work and from others in the industry.

Speaking of the industry, Rocky is surrounded by the best rap has to offer throughout his debut.

“Fuckin’ Problems,” which features 2012 heavyweights Drake, 2 Chainz and Kendrick Lamar, has already gone gold, and Rocky corrals some of the top up-and-comers—Lamar again, Joey Bada$$, Yelawolf, Danny Brown, Action Bronson and Big K.R.I.T.—for the huge posse cut “1 Train.”

Rocky also shows some love for other

Breana Harris

Robin Crowell Vanguard staff

Cultural understanding is a vital aspect of any business venture—especially ventures of the cross-cultural, international variety.

Formal mayoral candidate and Azumano Travel CEO Sho Dozono knows this maxim well. Dozono will speak tonight at Portland State as part of an ongoing lecture series called “Oregon Success Stories in Doing Business with Japan.”

Dozono, who received the second-highest number of votes to eventual victor Sam Adams in the ’08 Portland mayoral election, also produced the Japanese television program Oregon Kara Ai (From Oregon With Love), which will be the primary focus of his talk.

Ken Ruoff, director of the Center for Japanese Studies, organizes all of the public programming for the center, and discussed Dozono’s role and the show’s impact both abroad and here in Oregon.

“Sho, back in the ’80s, was one of the people back on the ground here in Oregon [who] worked with Fuji Television to facilitate this program about a Japanese family that lived in Oregon,” Ruoff said. “[The show] became fabulously popular in Japan. As a result of the television series, Oregon developed a certain image— [it] glorified the image of Oregon.

“As a result, [there was] an influx of Japanese

COURTESY OF Ken Ruoff

Fo sho: Portland businessman and former mayoral candidate Sho Dozono will speak on campus this very evening. tourists in Oregon. So, in that sense, it’s another one of many…success stories of Oregon businesses doing business with Japan,” Ruoff said.

Dozono believes that the television show created a different image of American travel for Japanese viewers.

“Oregon Kara Ai was a very special TV program that Azumano Travel brought to Oregon in order to promote Oregon as a travel destination for the growing Japanese tourist business,” Dozono said. “United Airlines had just started their once-a-week direct service between Portland and Tokyo in 1983. It was an opportunity to promote Oregon in Japan and it was a strategy

A silent roar

Vanguard staff

© Asap MOB

members of his A$AP crew, as well as OverDoz, Gunplay and Schoolboy Q, who contributes a verse that cribs from his Rocky-featuring 2012 hit “Hands on the Wheel.”

Rounding out the talent pool are Santigold and Skrillex, who both deliver performances around which Rocky molds his verses skillfully. The appearance of such disparate artists diversifies the middle section of the album.

While the lineup proves A$AP Rocky’s ability among his peers, the most obvious change in quality between Long.Live.A$AP and his 2011 mixtape is in its production credits. It’s here that he benefits greatly from his new industry ties.

Beats from aptly named producer Hit-Boy (“Ni--as in Paris” and “Clique”), Drake collaborator Noah “40” Shebib and five-time Grammy Award-winning producer of the year Danger Mouse add a professional edge to Rocky’s verses. Smartly, Rocky calls upon frequent collaborator Clams Casino (“Palace,” “Bass”), whose

ethereal, spaced-out beats made Live. Love.

A$AP such a sonic delight.

The feel and scope of the album are exactly what they should be for a rapper who is navigating the make-or-break transition from Internet success to national stardom. A$AP Rocky assures us of his charisma, creativity and potential, while bringing his own flair to industry expectations.

In an album as aware of its own creator as it is of its audience, Long.Live.A$AP proves that style and substance can be synonymous when the subject is A$AP Rocky.

Go to psuvanguard.com to hear Long.Live.

A$AP.

A$AP Rocky Long.Live.A$AP RCA/Polo Grounds/A$AP Worldwide Records Out now

To Japan from Oregon, with love Former mayoral candidate Dozono talks successful TV show

7

that Azumano came up with for that purpose.

Back in 1984, very few people in Japan had ever heard of Oregon.”

The show helped to illuminate aspects of America, guiding tourists down avenues not considered typical travel destinations. According to Dozono, the initial goals of Azumano Travel were to attract more tourists from Japan to Oregon. Dozono was serving on the state’s tourism commission and became increasingly frustrated that potential tourists knew nothing of Oregon.

Clients would assume that north of California lay Canada—nothing else. Since 1984, Azumano Travel has brought more than 30,000 young people over from Japan to study language and American culture in Oregon. Since then, the agency has expanded its offices to Seattle, and has had successes in attracting tourists there, as well.

“America was California, Disneyland, New York and not much else,” Dozono said. “We wanted to showcase Oregon as this brand-new destination, and what better way than having a major TV network come to Oregon to produce a TV program—similar to the once-popular Little House on the Prairie. “[From Oregon With Love] was produced by Japan’s number-one TV station, Fuji TV. The story [was] about a young boy coming to…live with his aunt and uncle on a ranch in central Oregon, and the challenges of adjusting [to] his new home and new country captured the imagination of a Japanese TV audience,” Dozono said. “It was an instant hit and made Oregon a household name in Japan.”

Ruoff and the rest of the center view success stories like these as important examples of how American business deals with Japan can enhance

both countries, both socially and financially.

“The lectures provide a series of case studies of people and companies who have succeeded in doing business with Japan,” Ruoff said. “The United States has close economic ties with Japan. The U.S. is still a place that a lot of foreign jobs depend on.”

According to Ruoff, this series in particular is an opportunity for students who may have an interest in a business career. Hearing from people who have succeeded in doing business with Japan may provide students with insight into future career endeavors.

PSU President Wim Wiewel is also a fan of the series.

“I’m happy to say that the Center for Japanese Studies has been wonderfully active in bringing fascinating speakers to PSU, both from Portland itself, Japan and elsewhere,” Wiewel said in an e-mail. “The speakers all have great insight into the challenges and rewards of doing business with a very different culture. This is very useful for our students, but also very interesting because it shows how people learn and grow, and how individuals can create amazing economic opportunities not just for themselves, but for their city and region.”

It’s still strange to realize that the war in Iraq has become, for the most part, a thing of the past. For years now, people on both sides of the political aisle have admitted it was largely a mistake, a war that began under false pretenses.

These same people have rallied to support the troops, who had no say in fighting it. But not all troops are created equally, which is part of the focus of Meg McLagan and Daria Sommers’ 2008 documentary, Lioness, about a unit of female soldiers called Team Lioness who served in frontline missions in Iraq.

The Women Veterans Outreach Action Team is screening Lioness on campus this evening and will hold a discussion following the film.

Though they face enormous struggles, veterans of Iraq are not viewed the same way Vietnam vets were when they returned home. It’s a credit to America that these returning Iraq vets have received much kinder treatment. I know I certainly have respect and admiration for a soldier’s ability to do things I could never imagine doing and face situations most of us will never face—especially female soldiers.

I think many of us can also relate to common reasons a young person has for joining the military, some of which are outlined in the film, such as earning money for college or learning valuable life skills. So it’s ironic that one of the initial barriers to Lioness is how difficult the women are to relate to, probably for many of us.

I don’t say this as a criticism, just as a larger issue the film might inspire you to consider.

When the film opens, we meet Spc. Shannon Morgan, a member of Team Lioness who hunts squirrels in rural Arkansas and declares that she doesn’t watch the news.

We see Capt. Anastasia Breslow’s father, a veteran himself, spout off about Al Gore and state, in a rather chilling way, that he’s willing to accept the risks of having both children in the military.

None of the five women profiled in the documentary, which also features Spc. Rebecca Nava, Maj. Kate Guttormsen and Staff Sgt. Ranie Ruthig, are women you would necessarily know. They might not be women you would

WRC screens female combat documentary Lioness

© Lloyd Francis Jr.

locked-and-loaded lionesses Cynthia Espinoza, Ranie Ruthig, Shannon Morgan and Michelle Perry in Ramadi, Iraq, July 2004. necessarily like. And they’re more than likely women you can’t understand, not least because it’s impossible to understand what war is like unless you’ve been in one.

So it might surprise you, like it did me, that McLagan and Sommers are both New Yorkbased filmmakers with no military background. They were simply fascinated by the changing face of the female soldier and the complicated reality that these women were serving on combat missions for all the wrong reasons, without the same training the men received and in ways that both the military and the media disregard.

Thursday, Jan. 17, 7 p.m.

Multicultural Resource Center Smith Memorial Student Union, room 228 Free and open to the public

The Women Veterans Outreach Action Team presents A screening and discussion of Lioness Thursday, Jan. 17, 3:30–6:30 p.m.

Women’s Resource Center Lounge Montgomery Hall Basement Free and open to the public

Roasted cauliflower soup A warm, rustic winter dinner

For a sweet and exotic twist, you can also try using coconut milk as a substitute.

When selecting a head of cauliflower, remember that the best specimens are bright white and unbruised. Cauliflowers that have a slightly yellow tint are usually older and will give your soup a bitter flavor.

Also be wary of baking temperatures: Many ovens tend to run a little hotter or colder than advertised, so keep an eye on your roasting florets. If you feel your cauliflower is becoming golden too quickly, cover your pan with a sheet of tinfoil while the florets finish baking.

The creaminess and spiciness of this soup is up to you: Add or subtract half-and-half and ground black pepper to achieve your desired flavor. Those who like a little heat can try a pinch of cayenne pepper for an added kick.

Daniel Johnston/VANGUARD STAFf

Warm your belly with a hearty bowl of comforting cauliflower soup. Serve with a toasted wheat baguette.

The Center for Japanese Studies presents The From Oregon With Love story Featuring Sho Dozono As part of its “Oregon Success Stories in Doing Business with Japan” lecture series

A 1994 policy called the “risk rule” bans female soldiers from participating in direct combat missions, which one can only assume was a reaction to the influx of women entering the military since the first Gulf War and the military’s inability to deal with a changing reality.

In the Iraq war, the definition of a combat mission was slightly different. In Ramadi, Iraq, the military soon discovered that with soldiers searching towns and individual homes of civilians, sometimes in the dead of night, females were often needed to calm down civilians and to interact with and search Islamic women in a way male soldiers couldn’t.

These searches resulted in valuable information and captures, and it placed the women of Team Lioness—who began as mechanics, supply clerks and signal workers—in incredibly scary and dangerous situations.

It was a temporary arrangement to get around violating the risk rule, and many of the male soldiers had no idea how little training the women had had. Many of the male soldiers didn’t even know the policy against women in combat existed.

The strength of Lioness lies in the powerful stories of these five women, often told from their own diary entries. These women might be different from us and different from each other, but their emotional accounts of the reality of war feel universal.

They talk about their conflicting feelings regarding the Iraqi civilians and the women and children of Ramadi, how it feels to kill people and how it feels to see people die. Guttormsen speaks eloquently about how female soldiers deal with the emotions of war much better than men do.

There’s another side to the story of Team Lioness, and that involves the deliberate caginess of the military regarding the discrepancy between these women’s official jobs and what they were actually asked to do.

One of the most powerful scenes involves the women reuniting to watch an Iraq documentary on the History Channel. Even the commercials seem to be selling a male fantasy of war. Soldiers are repeatedly referred to as “the men.” And yet the documentary depicts actual missions on which several of the women served.

Lioness is the fascinating story of how even the bravest of our fighting women are still fighting to be treated fairly.

Kat Audick Vanguard staff

After waddling around in the wet winter weather, the best way to treat yourself at the end of the day is a hot bowl of comfort food.

This roasted cauliflower soup recipe is incredibly inexpensive to make and has a rich,

satisfying, smoky flavor. Serve alongside your favorite crisp salad with a toasted wheat baguette for the perfect cold-day dinner.

This recipe can also easily be transformed into a vegan-friendly meal. Replace chicken stock with vegetable stock and finish it off with some creamy rice milk instead of half-and-half.

Instructions Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. In a large baking pan, toss cauliflower florets with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake at 400 degrees for approximately 40 minutes until golden, stirring florets once after 25 minutes of baking.

In a large pot, saute chopped shallots and garlic in 2 tablespoons of olive oil for 5 minutes, until shallots are translucent and fragrant. Add

Ingredients 1 head of cauliflower, cut into florets 4 tbsp olive oil, divided 2 shallots, chopped 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 russet potato, peeled and diced 3 cups chicken stock 1/2 cup water 1 tsp fresh thyme, chopped 1/2 tsp ground paprika 1 cup half-and-half Salt and pepper to taste roasted cauliflower florets, diced potato, chicken stock and water, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer over medium-low heat and cook for 20–30 minutes, until potato is tender.

Stir in thyme, paprika and a pinch of salt and pepper. In small batches, process soup in a blender with the plastic lid attachment removed and the hole covered with a damp cloth.

Once all of the soup has been blended, return it to the pot, add half-and-half and heat through until warm. Salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.

6 8

VANGUARD ••Thursday, Thursday, THURSDAY,OCTOBER TUESDAY, JANUARY Jan. Nov. FEBRUARY JANUARY 17, 8, 2013 2012 10, 25, 26, 2, 2012 2011 ••2012 ARTS ARTS •• •OPINION OPINION &&ARTS CULTURE CULTURE & CULTURE

Future cult classics come to Portland

Vanguard Newspaper: Jason Trost - Instant Message

Q-and-A with indie filmmaker Jason Trost Jaime Dunkle Vanguard Staff

Everyone loves to quote films: People may say they hate it, but everyone does it. No one has made more quotable movies than Jason Trost, the current kingpin of cult. Mark my words, his movies will go viral.

Modest up-and-coming director, writer, cinematographer and actor—what hasn’t this guy done?—Trost is coming to Portland to shoot a new project. Fans got wind of Trost’s visit and joined forces to screen his newest release, All Superheroes Must Die. Without the grassroots support, the film wouldn’t be playing in town.

Made under a crunching two-month deadline, All Superheroes Must Die pays homage to old-school comic book aesthetics along with some horror-movie gore. Since I’ve only seen the trailer, I can’t say much about the film except that I’m excited to watch it.

I bet you’re wondering what it’s about. Previously defeated super-villain Rickshaw (James Remar, Dexter) diabolically disarms the superpowers of Cutthroat (Lucas Till, X-Men: First Class), The Wall (Lee Valmassy, The FP), Charge (Jason Trost, The FP), and Shadow (Sophie Merkley). If they don’t play by his rules, everyone dies—including the entire city.

Trost will present the Portland premiere of

All Superheroes Must Die at Mt. Tabor Theater on Jan. 23, followed by the award-winning film he codirected (with his brother Brandon) and starred in, The FP. A Q-and-A will take place after each film, during which Trost will show exclusive clips from his new film #WetAndReckless.

Awesomely enough, Trost actually interacts with fans, and that’s just one way he inadvertently (or maybe deliberately, I didn’t ask) defies Hollywood. Instead of making assumptions about what people want, he searches for inventive ways to capture what he thinks hasn’t been executed on film yet.

I couldn’t believe Trost was so approachable: All I did was send him a quick instant message and—bam!—interview underway. Artists from all mediums should follow his lead and be, well, nice.

Trost and I did some online chatting, AOL Instant Messenger-style, to discuss his films and his filmmaking philosophy.

Jason Trost presents a screening of his films All Superheroes Must Die and The FP Wed. Jan. 23, 7:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

Q-and-A and sneak peek of #WetAndReckless to follow each film This event is free and open to those over the age of 21

COURTESY of Jason Trost

Vanguard: Yo, JTRO, sup?

Jason Trost: What’s up—I’m just waking up after an interesting Friday night.

Vanguard: What happened?

Jason Trost: I just had one too many drinks and watched the first half of Les Mis for the fifth time. Russell Crowe is a comedic genius!

Vanguard: Only the first half? And five times? I haven’t seen it yet.

Jason Trost: Yeah, I have one of those SAG screeners, and I can only make it through the first half because I’m usually too drunk by the time I make it to the second half.

The movie is that funny to me. I finally understand what it’s like when people watch The FP for the first time; it makes no sense, but I’m addicted to its absurdity.

Vanguard: LOL! So All Superheroes Must Die was recently picked up by Image Entertainment, and you changed the name from VS to All Superheroes Must Die. Why VS? And how do you feel by the name change?

Jason Trost: It happens a lot when you get a distributor. They feel if your title starts with a letter lower in the alphabet, you have better chance of impulse buys on VOD because it’s the first thing people see. That’s what happened to us.

It was originally called VS because that’s just exactly what the movie is—man vs. man, man vs. himself, man vs. his environment, et cetera.

Vanguard: A lot of backstory is known about The FP. Can you tell fans more about All Superheroes Must Die and #WetAndReckless? Any history behind these films?

Jason Trost: Yeah, I’ve pretty much beat The FP horse to death, especially after the commentary and behind the scenes. Ha. All Superheroes Must Die was an interesting thing. I was 23, it was 2010 and The FP was still in limbo [as to whether] it was ever going to come out. I found out that I had access to a very small sum of money ($20,000), but I only had two months to use it. So I had to come up with an idea, write the script, plan the movie and shoot the movie all in that time period.

At that point, it started to really look like The FP would never come out, so I had to do it. It was brutal because I definitely could/should have thought of a cheaper idea, but I’m proud of how it came out in the end and really impressed I pulled something off. Especially when considering our budget is literally half the weekly cost of the helicopter that the director of X-Men: First Class demanded have fly him to and from set every day. #WetAndReckless was a similar scenario (we even raised money on Indiegogo), and we went into production before The FP was released.

So, basically, all these movies are me just cleaning out the shed. Can’t wait to finally start on my first actual post-The FP movie.

Vanguard: You’ve mentioned movies like The Warriors and Mortal Kombat were an influence on The FP, but what about Cool As Ice? Or am I tripping?

Jason Trost: You are definitely tripping. I had never seen that movie before I made The FP. Makes sense in retrospect, though.

Vanguard: When asked to describe your film style I blurted out, “This guy is making the current new wave of cult classics.” Are you deliberately setting out to make cult films?

Jason Trost: Well, thanks! But I never set out to make cult movies. I think that’s impossible. It’s up to fans to decide if it’s a cult movie, not me. I just try and make things that I want to see or things that haven’t been done before—whether they should be or not is another question entirely.

I think when you start trying to make movies for other people, that is when your career falls apart. I know what I want; I can never pretend to know what anyone else wants, that’s impossible.

Vanguard: Yeah, I can see how it’s impossible to purposely achieve cult status.

The FP has two more parts, which means two more films in the making. Where are you at on production for those right now? I think I read somewhere that you started writing a script fairly recently?

Jason Trost: The FP has three more parts, to be technical. I’ve been writing treatments for them on and off since I was 20. But, unfortunately, the first movie bombed, initially, so we’ll have to wait for the movie to make the financiers’ very modest budget back someday, or I’ll have to wait until I accidentally get rich and fund the movies myself and use them as a tax write-off. It’s a shame because part two is such a better, crazier movie than part one. Some day…

Vanguard: Why the eye patch?

Jason Trost: It was a suggestion my brother had when I was in ninth grade because we both loved Escape from New York. I’m blind in one eye, so I went with it.

It’s way cooler than the contrary.

Vanguard: So you just happened to schedule a screening here in Portland because you were visiting anyway—what’s initially bringing you here?

Jason Trost: The screening at Mt. Tabor Theater came about randomly, and I’m so happy it did. Some rad people on my fan page heard I was coming up and offered me a chance to show some movies, which I love doing.

I’ll be in town because I’m doing some camera tests for a movie I hope to shoot in Portland this year, which may or may not be the sequel to All Superheroes Must Die. I just love Portland. I have a lot of friends up there. I’d live there in a second if it was a little closer to LA. Vanguard: Filming in Portland? That’s rad! You’ll have to let us know when you find out more!

Jason Trost: Yeah. I love Portland and have been trying to shoot something up there for a while. Fingers crossed it works out.

Vanguard: Anything else you wanna say?

Jason Trost: Basically, I just love Portland and I’m psyched I get to share my movies and drinks with people I love and respect.

Vanguard: Thanks again for chatting. See you on the 23rd!

Jason Trost: Can’t wait to hang and see everyone!

You can meet Trost in person and catch a double feature of his films on Wednesday, Jan. 23, at Mt. Tabor Theater’s lounge at 4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd.

16 10

OPINiON • Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013 • VANGUARD

VANGUARD •• Thursday, THURSDAY,Jan. NOVEMBER 17, 2013 10, • OPINiON 2011 • SPORTS

OPINION

EDITOR: Meredith Meier OPINION@PSUVANGUARD.COM 503-725-5692

One coin to rule them all

This, Too, Is Meaningless Benjamin Ricker

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Beyonce Knowles came to mind when I first read about the coin.

The first time I heard Destiny’s Child’s “Survivor” I wanted it to replace “The Star-Spangled Banner” as our national anthem.

Knowles’ lyrics make Francis Key’s sound dusty and boring. Better than any song I’ve heard, “Survivor” nails the defiant grit of the American psyche.

platinum Beyonce coin would make presidents on smaller bills appear blowsy and rundown, my thoughts turned to Optimus Prime.

Prime, a 30-foot tall robot who, when it helps, becomes a red, silver and blue Peterbilt 379 truck, is the epitome of the American spirit. Rather, he’s the embodiment of the truehearted America we learned about in elementary school.

Prime exemplifies the soul we wish America had.

Obsessed with freedom for everyone, Prime is a war hero with an unwavering sense of justice. Selfless, courageous, wise and compassionate, he is

Is Jon Stewart hurting America?

The Price of Everything Jake Romero

W

ith a Congressional fight over the debt ceiling looming once more, an idea for how to sidestep Republican opposition to raising it a second time has been making the rounds: Have the Treasury mint a $1 trillion platinum coin. Deposit it at the Fed. Pay some bills. Job done.

The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart made a joke about it…and Team Blue erupted. New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait called the bit a “crushing disappointment.” The Washington Monthly’s Ryan Cooper called it

Like moderate Republicanism, this working-class liberalism is one of those low-lying territories on the American civic landscape, long imperiled by political climate change, by now virtually vanished beneath the ever-rising tide of…malarkey, to put it delicately.

As retail politics in general seems to have collapsed into discrete, diametrically opposed states, so too has Stewart’s satire, once supple, ossified into schtick.

Ironically, this schtick has taken the form of a misleading

Karl kuchs/VANGUARD STAFf

King George III, in his dazzling raiment, thought that we’d be broke without him, but we’re richer. In 1776 he scoffed at us, thinking we would self-destruct without him, but we’re still here. The British thought we would fail without them, but we’re on top. They thought we’d be stressed without their protection, but we’re chilling.

Realizing that minting a

the best parts of Jesus Christ and George Washington combined. Prime is the obvious choice for the trillion-dollar honor.

Unfortunately the Treasury released a statement Saturday saying there’d be no trilliondollar coin. Even if the Treasury changed its mind, the Fed said they wouldn’t recognize the coin. Leave it to the Fed to spoil our fun.

Got something to say?

Give us your two cents!

LET US KNOW AT PSUVANGUARD.COM

Appropriating cultural identity

Parody and its discontents

Bizarre plan to mint $1 trillion, debt-resolving platinum coin raises an important question

eutering Congress before the upcoming debt ceiling dispute by asking the U.S. Department of the Treasury to mint a platinum coin worth $1 trillion was an idea that emerged from somewhere in the blogosphere in 2010. A couple years ago, Congressional gridlock over whether one of the wealthiest nations in the world would pay its bills wasted time that should have been spent on anything else and, despite the nick-of-time agreement not to default, degraded the nation’s credit rating anyway.

With the nation facing an impasse similar to the one in 2011, Business Insider’s Joe Weisenthal and Josh Barro of Bloomberg View resuscitated the trillion-dollar coin solution.

By handing the coin over to the Federal Reserve System, the Treasury could get its paws on enough cash to ignore the arbitrary debt ceiling altogether. Harmless, says economist Paul Krugman.

Though easy to ridicule, the plan is legally sound and less destructive than giving House Republicans a month to lord their control of the debt ceiling over President Barack Obama, Krugman blogged.

Krugman went on to suggest the coin be pressed with House Speaker John Boehner’s likeness. “Because without him and his colleagues,” Krugman wrote, “this wouldn’t be necessary.”

Spite is one way to go about choosing whose face belongs on the most valuable coin in the world. But who wants Boehner’s dead eyes and sagging jowls immortalized in platinum? If we’re going to mint a coin worth $1 trillion (a figure with 12 zeros in it), we need to think on a scale much bigger than cheap punks like Boehner.

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“possibly the laziest and most irresponsible segment” ever.

Why the vitriol? Stewart apparently missed the fact that the idea itself is satirical, meant to highlight the absurdity of a loophole in federal law that would allow such a scheme, as well as show the outrageousness of what another liberal luminary, Paul Krugman, calls the “extortion” on the part Republican lawmakers.

Isn’t this all just a bit too humorless? Undoubtedly. But they’re also sort of right.

I’ve always liked Jon Stewart. For a time, he embodied a certain East Coast, ruggedly left-of-center political sensibility familiar to me from my childhood in New York: a politics of the underdog and of the average Joe and Jane, one as antagonistic to the powerful as it is wary of (inevitably oppressive) utopian excess.

rhetoric of “balance”—one that gives the impression that both parties are equally to blame for the dysfunction in Washington—precisely the feature of “respectable” news outlets that Stewart once parodied.

Rachel Maddow, high priestess of MSNBC liberalism, has called Stewart out on this—in their 2010 debate before his “Rally to Restore Sanity,” she accused him of attempting to draw a “false equivalence” between the parties.

The episode was unpleasant for many. As a friend told me at the time, “It was traumatic.

Like watching Mom and Dad fighting each other. Who do I side with?”

Better book your therapist.

This time it’s the Prophet Paul (Krugman) with the harshest words, calling Stewart “lazy.” Stewart, he says, not only “flunked econ,” but also

“flunked law, politics and just plain professional [sic].”

Stewart would surely counter, as he always has, that his job is that of comedian, not pundit. This is a cop-out. Regardless of his intent or aspirations, Stewart has the same kind and degree of influence as any political pundit.

For a generation of young people weaned on The Daily Show, Stewart’s political satire has been formative—it’s been received, interpreted and appreciated more as news and commentary than for its humor.

So it’s not just sad but symptomatic of a broader trend when a parody of shallow, commercially driven news itself succumbs to the depth-averse imperatives of commerce, for at the heart of satire is sincerity: Every joke is a kind of argument. Shallow thinking and cheap jokes are close kin.

The typical Daily Show joke, when it doesn’t amount to merely pointing and laughing, is something like a reductio ad absurdum wrapped in potty humor: Jon invites me to assume some claim is true, we together derive an absurd implication, and, concluding that the original claim is false, I pat myself on the back for being so much more enlightened than my benighted political adversaries (and, in theory at least, compatriots).

Top it all off with a facile even-handedness so I can tune out politics altogether in righteous disgust, and call it a show.

But still I’m left, on some level, unsatisfied. Why all this supposed radicalism? What motivates its proponents?

Is radicalism justified? If so, how, and to what extent? Satire can engage with such questions, provoking thought and perhaps even empathy. Cheap satire merely assumes them away and sates the curiosity with convenient answers.

Democracy, as a form of collective problem solving, works because (and insofar as) it brings into contact the full spectrum of diverse perspectives and aggregates them in a way that brings us, collectively, as close to the truth as is feasible. The capital-T truth may be unobtainable, but the democratic truth is good enough, as it were, for government to work.

“Parody,” novelist Adam Mars-Jones notes, “can tell you everything about its target, except how people could have taken it seriously in the first place.”

Can democracy function properly when politics and parody become indistinguishable, when all politics is parody and all parody political?

Look around.

Hashtags are problematic; everything’s problematic One Step Off Emily Lakehomer Karl kuchs/VANGUARD STAFf

Portland, America Homogenous urbanization makes local eccentricities into national fads Conversation Nation Megan Hall

H

aving grown up in Portland, I tend to gravitate unintentionally toward spaces in other towns that remind me of home. While visiting another state, I usually end up stumbling upon a coffee shop or bar that feels somewhat familiar, perusing the local beer and wine selection or sipping a cup of coffee while reading the paper.

While Portland has been a center of quirky independent business for as long as I’ve known it, it used to be a more challenging exercise to find these types of places in many other cities. Recently, however, it seems to no longer be much of a challenge, even in the most unlikely town. The local-food/wine/coffee/microbrew culture that’s spread across America (and the world) has brought with it a particular type of restaurant, coffee shop and bar—and every one of them, while distinct, seems strangely familiar.

I spent the entirety of my winter break in Orlando, Fla. When I first started going there for the holidays a few years ago, it was exactly what you might imagine exo-Disney Central Florida to be: strip malls, palm trees, lots of concrete.

This, of course, is still mostly true, but a lot has changed recently. There are new bars with extensive microbrews on tap, quirky spaces with mood lighting and hodgepodge furniture, local art, food cart pods, spaces for local indie bands to play their sets to a young and moderately interested coffee shop crowd and vegan cafes growing their own vegetables out back. In effect, there is more than a little bit of Portland in Orlando.

I got to thinking, while sitting at a coffee shop/bar/movie rental/bookstore/music venue called Stardust Video and Coffee, that this type of urbanization, while easy to praise, also brings with it a sense of homogeneity. In seeking out areas that feel cool, I now feel like I never really leave home. Certainly, the buildings change, but within them lie familiar spaces that present a manufactured uniqueness, one that’s trying to be different and yet is distinctly uniform.

Much like local accents disappearing in the nationwide move toward a uniform American accent, this new local culture may have pushed out an old local identity.

The cultural fad that is hipsterdom is based on clothing, movies, TV shows and art, but it’s also brought with it a certain type of architecture.

Inside spaces have become more enclosed, walls erected or, conversely, completely torn down for the sake of minimalism. Bar and coffee shop owners arrange and remodel spaces to make them fit this new cultural sense of style.

If I can find a bit of the

Northwest in Central Florida, it begs the question of whether the growth of this homogenous culture represents a loss of local culture or the filling of a void.

From what I knew of Orlando seven years ago, I wasn’t impressed with my option of T.G.I. Friday’s for happy hour drinks, but I was probably missing out on a local culture that I failed to see because it was unfamiliar.

Much like local accents disappearing in the nationwide move toward a uniform American accent, this new local culture may have pushed out an old local identity.

However, it’s also spurred a series of other local business ventures that may never have survived 10 years ago.

Breweries are springing up, urban wineries are shipping in juice from other states and overseas, locally roasted coffee (or maybe just more Stumptown) is being brewed in cafes, locally sourced food carts are staging street parties. This in itself is supporting an entire section of the economy that by popular accounts was absent just a few years prior.

Culture is, of course, always changing, and the notion that it should or even can be preserved is one that misunderstands the meaning of the term. The push toward independently run, locally sourced business brings with it a familiar culture to us here in Portland, and while the cool coffee shop in Orlando may still be located in a strip mall, its unique homogeneity is a sign of a cultural phenomenon that’s spread nationwide, and even to the most unlikely towns.

There’s a little bit of Portland all across this country, and I hope, at least eventually, this uniformity will give way to a new sense of local, one that will again differentiate cities from one another. In the meantime, it’s nice to peruse a local beer list in a place that feels a bit like home and yet is clearly very far away.

I

f you’re familiar with the blogosphere in any way, shape or form, chances are you’re either a Tumblr user or you’ve stumbled upon the website at some point.

If you haven’t heard of Tumblr, congratulations, you’re doing something right—because it’s a terrible, terrible place (as a Tumblr user myself, I’m half joking here). It’s a free “blogging” platform that allows users to customize their own Tumblelog. Users are free to post text, photos, videos and other media with little or no censorship.

Like many other social network and blogging sites, Tumblr is filled to the brim with what are called “social justice bloggers/tumblrs.”

These are users who go around policing other people’s posts and opinions and letting others know when they’ve stepped too far out of line. Social justice bloggers tackle everything from issues of race and ethnicity to veganism, war, abuse and pretty much any other topic you can think of.

While it’s good that these topics are being discussed in an open forum that allows everyone to have input, it’s almost farcical. Sure, providing an opinion via the Internet or, worse, Tumblr, is great—but that opinion is null unless it is backed up with evidence. Plus, blogging about your opinion is not the same as being an activist in real life, which is how many of the social justice bloggers on Tumblr act.

One of the most recent trending topics within the social justice blogosphere is the idea of transethnicity. Transethnicity is when a person of

one ethnicity identifies with aspects of another culture or ethnicity. This is prevalent with individuals who have been adopted and then raised in a different country and culture than what they were born into.

We’re sure doing a great job of being appropriative all-stars.

There is obvious merit to this. However, the reason transethnicity has been a popular topic the past few weeks is because there has been a rise in individuals (read: white people) claiming that they identify with another culture and wish to claim that cultural identity as their own.

When this happens, people get angry (for obvious reasons). If you want to take on a different cultural identity just because something within you stirs when you read manga or eat bratwurst, it doesn’t mean you can just hop on over and be a part of that culture.

There’s a clear difference between having a respect and love of another culture, and attempting to completely assimilate into that culture without having to face any oppression that said culture has gone through—it’s racist.

People currently labeling themselves “transethnic” via Tumblr only further ethnic stereotypes and blatant racism both on a cyber level and in the real world.

Hell no.

If you’re uncomfortable in your own skin, then you should be able to do something to change it. However, completely appropriating another identity is not the answer.

Cultural appropriation has been a huge problem for pretty much as long as there’s been colonialism. The U.S. isn’t the only country guilty of it, but we’re sure doing a great job of being appropriative all-stars. Cultural appropriation is all around us, and sometimes it’s inevitable.

For instance, tattoos and piercings are a fashion norm at this point, yet they hail from all different cultures.

This one is harder to tackle, but just because tattoos and piercings are accepted parts of multiple cultures doesn’t mean you have to buy that Aztec-print shirt at Urban Outfitters. Besides, that stuff looks tacky anyway.

This whole transethnic hashtag trend will pass because that’s how the Internet works. That right there is one of the main problems with making transethnicity a mainstream thing. If it’s simply enough to just wake up and think, “I identify with insert ethnicity differentiating from your own today!” you can claim that identity (because we have free will). Then you can also dump said identity as soon as you get tired of it, thus illegitimatizing that culture.

Racism is bad. Claiming another cultural identity based on blatant stereotypes is problematic and inherently wrong. It’s unethical.

Think about it, and don’t do it.

Miles Sanguinetti/VANGUARD STAFf

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ETC. ETC. •• Thursday, Thursday, Jan. Nov.17, 8, 2013 2012 • VANGUARD

VANGUARD • Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013 • Opinion

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Erick Bengel EDITOR@PSUVANGUARD.COM 503-725-5691

Sandy Hook: wrong priorities

Our moral imperative

Monday, Jan. 21

Does society encourage ethical decision-making?

Consequences of the media circus That’s What’s the Matter Kevin Rackham

S

andy Hook’s students are back in school, Clackamas Town Center reopened within the week, and the man responsible for the Aurora shootings is on trial. America seems to be recovering and moving on from last year’s mass shootings, but we still don’t seem to be learning from them.

We know the names, the home lives and the various disorders of all of the shooters from the past 30 years.

We’ve seen their faces dozens of times and their motivations and influences have been picked apart and overanalyzed ad nauseam. What about their victims?

We see candlelight vigils, crying parents and empty schools, but we rarely hear the victims’ names or learn anything about their lives. And this happens time after time.

Big news stations and papers never pick up anything about the people who were killed.

It’s not because there are too many people, either. The New York Times published “Portraits of Grief,” a collection of one-paragraph biographies for those who died in the 9/11 attacks, and it took them less than two months to finish.

They wrote a paragraph for every one of almost 2,000 people. There’s no reason something similar couldn’t be done for the victims of the much

smaller-scale events like Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook.

It doesn’t happen, though, at least not on a national level.

Instead we end up glamorizing the shooters. Wikipedia lists the weapons used in the shootings; shooters’ manifestos and writings get published and aired, and there’s all kinds of evidence that provides inspirations for people who would take after them.

The fact that human nature is terrible and drawn to tragedies doesn’t mean it should be catered to.

The Virginia Tech shooter referenced the Columbine shooters by name in the documents he sent to NBC. The prevalence of mass shootings can’t be blamed on gun control or lack of mental health reform. It comes down to the way it’s reported. We end up romanticizing shooters when we pay so much attention to

Suraj Nair/VANGUARD STAFf

them and so little to the lives they destroyed.

Then we further trivialize the people they affected by politicizing their deaths. I’ve heard more about gun control in the last month than I have in the last 19 years I’ve been alive. That’s okay to an extent; something obviously needs to change.

But when the murders of 20 children become a talking point or an excuse for people to scream at each other on TV, it takes the meaning away from everything that happened.

It might sound heartless, but we should be doing our best to forget the names of the shooters. Giving them notoriety only increases the likelihood of similar things happening. Instead of these huge exposes on their home lives, childhoods and experiences at school, or those painfully sad and uncomfortable interviews with their families, just let it be. Move on to remembering the victims, honor their lives and let their families talk about them.

On that subject, why air interviews with the shooter’s family at all? No one wants to go on national television to talk about why their son shot up a school. They have to be filled with such an awful mixture of grief, guilt and anger that I’m surprised they function as well as they do.

Seeing a red-eyed mother talking about how hard it was to connect with her son, or how shocked she is at what happened, isn’t really what America needs or wants to see.

A lot of the blame has to go on the people watching the news, rather than the people creating it, I guess. I personally avoided news sites as much as I could after initially hearing about the Sandy Hook tragedy, and when Facebook and Reddit started flooding with articles, I avoided them, too.

After I know the basic details, I don’t want to hear about it anymore. It’s depressing, and you’re more or less subjected to a rehash of the same information over and over again. But people eat it up. Ratings soar, articles are suddenly getting thousands of page views and shares, and everyone is talking about it.

The media fulfills the same role they’ve been successful at fulfilling time after time.

The fact that human nature is terrible and drawn to tragedies doesn’t mean it should be catered to. The way these types of events are reported is so much more harmful and degrading than it should be.

It’s worth making a change because that change just might be the thing that makes them less common.

Art of the Possible Joseph Kendzierski

C

an a person be moral without being a member of a religion? I would say that yes, a person can be moral without being religious; the two are not mutually inclusive, but neither are they mutually exclusive.

History is littered with examples of people and societies committing acts of genocide, torture and what we now consider immoral behavior. Examples include the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust.

In each of these examples, religious leaders told the masses that what they were doing was not only good and right, but imperative to spreading and defending the faith. Never mind the fact that these acts flew in the face of the teachings of their religion. Religion clearly has no monopoly on morality.

So then why should the election of religiously nonaffiliated persons to one of the highest positions of authority matter?

Dennis Prager, in his article titled “Why Young Americans Can’t Think Morally,” states that the current generation can’t be moral because they were brought up outside of the Judeo-Christian belief system. His core belief about morality—and secularism in general—is this: “If moral standards are not rooted in God, they do not objectively exist.”

While I disagree with his premise that only if one believes in God can one be moral, he does make a point that the current younger

generation doesn’t have a comprehensive moral belief system. Instead, they seem to have been raised with the individualistic approach that they decide what is moral and what isn’t.

While most of us could agree that certain things like murder, theft and dishonesty are inherently immoral behaviors, there’s far more ambiguity about less concrete scenarios.

Religion clearly has no monopoly on morality.

Prager cites a study conducted by Christian Smith, a sociologist at the University of Notre Dame, who found that “moral thinking didn’t enter the picture, even when considering things like drunken driving, cheating in school or cheating on a partner.”

What does this mean for society? Are we moving away from one built upon a moral foundation to one based upon individual feelings of right and wrong? Or are we redefining what moral behavior is?

To answer these questions: On Jan. 2, Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, swore in the first of 11 religiously

“non-affiliated” representatives, Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz.

While this may turn out to be a mere side note in the grand scheme of history, it’s significant to me that only now are people who do not actively subscribe to any religion being voted into positions of significant power.

Obviously, 11 representatives in Congress don’t make a majority or even a significant enough bloc to be able to push an agenda. But it does signal a turn in the thinking of some large swaths of our society.

No longer is the religious affiliation of a candidate as important, at least in some districts. Instead of relying on some abstract higher being to dictate what’s right and wrong, some people in power will now be able to freely rely upon their on reasoning and the laws of our country to tell us what’s right and what’s wrong.

Instead of placing her hand on a Bible, Sinema chose to place her hand on the Constitution. While the gesture did take place in ceremony, it signaled what I believe to be her line of thinking: As a representative of her district, she swore to execute her duties to the office and the law of the land.

Ultimately, the real problem isn’t that our leaders don’t follow their own religious codes of morality—one need look no further than the multitude of sex scandals for evidence—but rather that society no longer values moral and conscious decision-making.

Instead our society is more focused on getting whatever it wants, as long as it doesn’t have to personally pay the cost. This Nietzschean philosophy isn’t conducive to building the Great Society we’re supposed to have.

Friends of Chamber Music Presents: Takacz Quartet

Race Matters: A Facilitated Discussion and Dialogue

7:30 p.m.

Lincoln Hall 1620 SW Park Ave.

11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m.

Smith Memorial Student Union, room 228 1825 SW Broadway

World renowned musical ensemble the Takacz Quartet will be at PSU to perform some of their varied compositions in Lincoln Hall. Tickets are available at the PSU Box Office.

Portland State’s Diversity Action Council will be facilitating an open discussion in the Multicultural Center about how to develop better practices dealing with race matters between the university and commuFREE nities of color.

Day of Service 8 a.m.–2:30 p.m.

South Park Blocks

In honor of the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. you are invited to come be a part of a day of service around the community. Transportation and lunch are provided and children about the age of allowed to attend with an adult. Email Jessica Conley at jrc5@pdx.edu for more FREE information.

Tuesday, Jan. 22 COURTESY OF imdb

Come to the Rec Center for a very different kind of pool party with your peers.

Mean Girls shows at 8-10 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 23.

Thursday, Jan 17

The From Oregon with Love Story (Oregon kara ai) 7 p.m.

Smith Memorial Student Union, room 228 1825 SW Broadway

The Multicultural Center will host Sho Dozono, CEO of Azumano Travel, who will discuss the rise in tourism from Japan to Oregon due to Fuji Television’s popular drama, From Oregon with Love (Oregon FREE kara ai).

Film and Discussion: Lioness 5:30–7:30 p.m.

Women’s Resource Center 1802 SW 10th Ave.

Join the Women Veterans Outreach Action Team for a screening of the film Lioness, a story about a group of female army support soldiers who made history by being sent into direct ground combat. Snacks will be provided and there will be a discusFREE sion following the film.

Staged Reading: Limonade Tous les Jours 7:30 p.m.

Lincoln Hall, room 115 1620 SW Park Ave.

Lminonade Tous les Jours, a love story set in Paris between an American man and Parisian woman who are determined never to fall in love again, will be performed in a free staged reading in the Studio Theatre FREE at Lincoln Hall.

Friday, Jan. 18

Friday Flat Fix Clinic Noon–12:30 p.m.

PSU Bike Hub 1818 SW Sixth Ave.

Bring your bike to this free workshop where you can learn how to fix a flat tire on your specific ride.

FREE

Student Leadership Conference: Change and Renewal 10:30 a.m.

Smith Memorial Student Union, third floor ballroom 1825 SW Broadway

Students who are in leadership positions and those who are interested in becoming student leaders are invited to come and connect or find out what it takes to be a student leader.

For more information and to register for this event visit portlandstatesalp. tumblr.com.

Saturday, Jan. 19

Chocolate Fest 11 a.m.–6 p.m.

Oregon Convention Center 777 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Chocolate Fest provides the opportunity for attendees to sample some of the best chocolate in the Northwest and from various other regions.

Tickets are $7–12. For more information visit chocolatefest.org.

Roaring ’20s Night 7 p.m.

University Place Hotel 310 SW Lincoln St.

The 1920s come to life at a casino night sponsored by the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. Casino games, food, drinks and music from the ’20s will be featured in addition to costumed characters. Donations are accepted for entry.

Sunday, Jan. 20

Hungover Brunch 9 a.m.–3 p.m.

Swift Lounge 1932 NE Broadway

If you have had a rough weekend Swift Lounge has the cure with a specialized menu designed for rejuvenation every Saturday and Sunday. This brunch is always 21+ and the only cost is the price of food. 21+

Wednesday, Jan. 23

Winter Term PSU Blood Drive 11 a.m.–4 p.m.

Smith Memorial Student Union, third floor ballroom 1825 SW Broadway

The American Red Cross and Portland State are teaming up once again to collect lifesaving donations. If you would like to donate blood you can register to do so at redcrossblood.org.

Winter Riding and Maintenance Noon–1 p.m.

PSU Bike Hub 1818 SW Sixth Ave.

Come to the Bike Hub at PSU for some free tips on keeping yourself warm and dry during winter riding and maintaining the functionality of your bike. Feel free to bring your bike FREE for specific questions.

Faculty Favorite Lecture Series: Rebecca J. Hannagan 1–3 p.m.

Women’s Resource Center 1802 SW 10th Ave.

Professor Rebecca J. Hannagan will be at the Women’s Resource Center to speak about the exploitation of the human body within the military and an examination of sexual violence as FREE a result of this.

Raj Patel: Who Owns Our Food?

7 p.m.

First Congregational Church 1126 SW Park Ave.

13

ETC.

Award-winning author and activist Raj Patel brings his expertise on food policy and his thoughts about the global food system to Portland in the form of a highly informative lecture. This lecture is free for PSU students with valid ID. FREE

Dive-In Movie: Mean Girls 8–10 p.m.

PSU Academic and Student Rec Center pool 1800 SW Sixth Ave.

Come to the Rec Center to enjoy a free screening of the hit coming-ofage comedy starring Lindsay Lohan and fill yourself up with free pizza.

FREE

Thursday, Jan. 24

Art and Nonviolent Resistance in Syria 6:30 p.m.

Smith Memorial Student Union, room 296/298 1825 SW Broadway

Head to the Smith Memorial Student Union for a screening of The Suffering Grasses, a film about violence in Syria and methods of nonviolent resistance developed to counter it.

This will be followed by a discussion featuring hip-hop artist Omar Offendum, PSU faculty member Taghrid Khuri and Rotary Fellow Steve Nakana. The event will be concluded with a hip-hop performance.

FREE = on PSU campus FREE = free of charge = open to the public 21+ = 21 and over

14

VANGUARD ••Thursday, TUESDAY, JANUARY Jan. 17, 2013 10, 2012 • SPORTS • ETC.

SPORTS

EDITOR: MARCO ESPAñA SPORTS@PSUVANGUARD.COM 503-725-4538

Basement notes: Australian Open

First major of the year underway in Melbourne

© andrew brownbill/ap

holding ground: Novak Djokvic leads the field into Melbourne this year. The Serbian finished 2012 on a high note, beating Roger Federer in the final of the world tour finals and reclaiming his spot atop the rankings.

Marco España Vanguard staff

The portion of the calendar rationed out to serve as the official offseason of the Association of Tennis Professionals World Tour spans about a month and a half, from the conclusion of the World Tour Finals in mid-November to the start of the first sanctioned tournament at the end of December.

In truth, there is no offseason; professional tennis players form a ceaseless caravan through the international market, stretching out to the edges of the map and making stops along the way in every scattered hamlet willing to pay for the privilege. Those who take holidays from the tour do so because they can afford to do it, or because an injury has left them no other choice. The rest simply move on to the next stop, the next rankings grab, the next (oversized) check. On the ATP Tour, you eat what you kill.

So it comes as little surprise that, after roughly eight weeks of exhibition events and assorted team competitions, the machine is back on the move again and fighting it out in Melbourne Park at the Australian Open. Once an afterthought among the majors, routinely skipped by many players even after they were no longer forced to travel there by boat, the “Grand Slam of Asia/Pacific” is now one of the most highly regarded and lucrative events in any sport, a career highlight for anyone making their living with a racket and rubber soles.

Though there were 128 players entered in the men’s draw on Monday morning, conversation before the tournament was predictably funneled toward the foursome of Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal. Those four names have been distributed in some order at the top of the rankings since 2008, and are responsible for 30 of the past 31 Grand Slam titles. When Nadal confirmed last month that a stomach virus would delay his return from lingering knee problems and keep him out of the tournament, the draw immediately opened up for the rest of the field, if only a little.

Djokovic, the number-one-ranked player and defending champion in Australia, has earned the right to be called the favorite this year. After losing his top ranking to Federer last summer and falling to Murray in the U.S. Open final two months later, the Serbian found his form again during the fall indoor swing, collecting a Masters title in Shanghai along with his second victory at the year-end championship and finishing the year back at number one. Though he failed in 2012 to match his dominant three-major run of the previous year, Djokovic is still the smart

money almost every time he steps onto a hard court, and has won the title in Melbourne three times.

Ranked two spots below him is Murray, likely the most significant obstacle standing in the way of another major run by Djokovic. The Scotsman is returning after a career-altering season in 2012, when he beat Federer for the gold medal at the London Olympics and finally claimed his first major title in September. Under the guidance of eight-time Grand Slam winner Ivan Lendl, Murray was able to channel his often-destructive temper and shed the baggage of his first four losses in major finals (Lendl also lost his first four). In doing so, he also managed to come out from under the suffocating burden of his nation’s 76-year wait for a Grand Slam men’s singles champion, which will only make Murray more dangerous in 2013.

Just above him in the rankings sits Roger Federer, who arrived in Melbourne Park surprisingly under the radar, if a player with 17 major titles to his name and more than 300 weeks logged at number one could ever claim to be overlooked. Though Federer is clearly on the downslope of his career at 31, the combination of his flawless technique, unparalleled movement and monastic commitment to fitness has allowed him to hold steady in the rankings and remain in the discussion at the year’s biggest events.

To this end, Federer has also begun to organize his schedule more judiciously in the last couple of years, creating space in between stops on tour in order to eliminate some of the wear on his body and peak during the season’s most important stretches.

This year, he scaled back even more, committing to only 14 tournaments (15 if he remains in the top eight and qualifies for the year-end championship) and coming into the Australian Open without any match play for the first time. He also opted out of two Masters tournaments in the spring and does not plan to compete in the Davis Cup for Switzerland this year, a clear statement that he intends to bet everything on the majors during this final phase of his career.

Even without Nadal in the draw, the prospects of a fifth Aussie Open title for the Basel-born legend will be complicated by a field packed to capacity with contenders. As the rest of the tour have struggled to pierce the extended reign of the top four, it’s often easy to overlook the fact that professional tennis is currently populated by one of the deepest generations of talent in its history.

Juan Martin del Potro, the soft-spoken Argentine with the pistol-whip forehand who doubles as the only man outside of

the top four with a major title in nearly eight years, has steadily worked his way back from the wrist injuries that doused his momentum after winning the U.S. Open in 2009. It’s been an agonizingly slow road back since then, but del Potro arrived in Australia ranked seventh and represents a serious problem for the rest of the field as long as his body holds up.

Del Potro and the rest of the dark horses (though the term is decidedly relative) will be joined by David Ferrer, a tireless Spaniard whose game was constructed using everything del Potro never had any use for. Ferrer has been a fixture in the top 10 for several years running but has yet to make his mark at the majors, having never reached a Grand Slam final. He was the chief beneficiary of Nadal’s withdrawal this year, moving into his own quarter of the bracket and ensuring that he won’t run into any of the top three before the semifinals. With a little help from an upset in another section, Ferrer’s soccer-pitch stamina may just carry him to the championship round this year.

Other candidates who stand out from the pack include the eternally morose Tomas Berdych, whose thudding baseline game can overwhelm even the most diligent defense once the court begins to quicken, and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the unpredictable Frenchman with a dynamic all-court attack that got him to the Australian Open final in 2008. Berdych also has a final-round appearance to his credit—at Wimbledon in 2010—and both he and Tsonga have the talent to win seven matches in a row against anyone in the world. It remains to be seen if either has the temperament to allow them to do so.

As demonstrated by the gradual decline of Federer and the ongoing physical breakdown of Nadal, time will eventually claim this regime too—of that we can be certain. For the better part of eight years, those looking in on the feast among the top four have labored to come up with an answer, and for eight years they have largely come up empty. But the season is brand new again, and the tour returns with fresh legs to try to make history at a tournament that moved from the tail end of the year to the very beginning, from Kooyong to Melbourne and from grass to hard court, adapting and evolving for a new generation on the ruthless and interminable procession of the ATP Tour.

Correction On page 16 of the Jan. 15 edition of the Vanguard, a photo of Portland Winterhawks goalie Mac Carruth ran with a caption stating that he recently became the team’s all-time leader in saves. Carruth actually broke the Winterhawks’ all-time record for career wins. The Vanguard regrets the error.

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VANGUARD • Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013 • SPORTS

The lockout, part 2: missed opportunities Treading water in the NHL Zach Bigalke Vanguard staff

Eight years after the lockout that stole the 2004–05 season, NHL players offered the league’s owners an extension of the collective bargaining agreement as it came up for renewal this summer. Despite suffering a 24 percent salary rollback (after losing the battle on the salary cap issue in 2005), members of the NHL Players’ Association were more than happy to continue playing under the same terms that had been hammered out after that lost season.

Failing once again to learn from its troubled history, the NHL repeated its mistakes from 1994–95 and 2004–05 and used the opportunity to lock out the players. Somehow expecting men who wield sticks and strap razors to their feet for a living to capitulate to their every demand—as the players had been duped into doing for three decades under NHLPA Director Alan Eagleson—Gary Bettman and the owners interrupted a third season in 18 years expecting different results.

The official terms of the new collective bargaining agreement indicate, as expected, that the owners gained greater control of revenue. They won their biggest battle of the CBA war when they succeeded in decreasing the players’ share of hockey-related revenue from 57 percent to 50 percent and capped the length of player contracts at seven years (eight for teams re-signing their own players). It’s the sort of deal that more clearly defines how such terms tend to be worked out in the NHL. But the truth beyond the agreement is that the NHL fought for and won peripheral gains for its owners while failing to address the core issues that will continue to plague

the league going forward.

The new CBA also did nothing to ease the enmity that has persisted between the NHL and NHLPA since Eagleson was deposed in 1992, further alienating the fans, broadcasters and sponsors which any professional sports league depends on for survival.

Ballooning from 21 to 30 teams over the past 20 years, the league chased expansion revenue anywhere they found it, without ever considering the long-term ramifications. By dropping franchises into cities without a viable hockey culture, the NHL vainly expected a fan base to rise out of the desert. According to a special report by Forbes, 2004 Stanley Cup winner Tampa Bay loses $13.1 million annually, 2006 champion Carolina operates at a $9.4 million deficit and 2007 winner Anaheim bleeds $10.8 million each season. They are three among 13 teams in the NHL that lose money as a matter of annual ritual.

While the overall operating income of the league doubled to $250 million in 2012, a full onethird of that total was brought in by the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Original Six teams—Toronto, the Montreal Canadiens, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, Boston Bruins and New York Rangers—alone create $263 million in income.

With nearly half the league’s teams losing money, none of the concessions won in the new CBA could hope to rectify the income disparity.

The league did indeed increase its revenue-sharing program, but that program does nothing to assist teams like Anaheim or the New York Islanders, who play in large metropolitan areas but suffer financially as second fiddle to the Los Angeles Kings and New York Rangers. For the eight teams with operating losses of at least $10 million yearly, not even an increase in revenue share will automatically turn

Women’s basketball back in Park Blocks Vikings host Northern Colorado and North Dakota Rosemary Hanson Vanguard staff

The Portland State women’s basketball team hopes to keep the momentum from last week’s road win alive when they take on the University of Northern Colorado and the University of North Dakota this week. The Vikings managed to come through against Northern Arizona University to win 60-59 last Saturday, but

have struggled to shut down their opponents’ offense in recent games. A strong defensive effort will be key for the Vikings in their next two games at home.

Northern Colorado comes into the game off a loss to topranked University of Montana. The Bears, 6-8 overall and 3-2 in conference, fell behind early in the first half and were unable to make up the difference in the second, falling 56-42. The squad boasts offensive threats in senior forward Lauren Oosdyke and junior guard D’shara Strange. Oosdyke had her first double-double of the season against the Lady Griz with 11 points and 13 rebounds, while

Upcoming Games Thursday, Jan. 17

Women’s Basketball

vs.

Vikings vs. Northern Colorado Peter Stott Center 7:30 p.m.

10 a.m.

Men’s Basketball

@ Vikings @ Northern Colorado Butler-Hancock Sports Pavilion 6:05 p.m.

Friday, Jan. 18

Track and Field

© michael miller

prodigal sons: The NHL returns to action in a few days following a three-and-a-half-month lockout. red ink into black.

Established owners who were happy to take expansion fees have shown no desire to work together in order to plug the cash drain of those fledgling franchises. Because the previous lockout drastically reduced their television revenue, the NHL’s dependence on gate receipts only managed to magnify the gap between rich and poor teams. The Tampa Bay Lightning, for example, averaged more paying customers per home game than the New York Rangers last season, yet the Lightning lost millions while the Rangers had an operating income of $74 million.

Why? Because New York can charge almost double what Tampa Bay can to fill the same number of seats. The Rangers pull in around $20 million more per season from attendance alone.

The salary cap implemented after the 2004–05 lockout was supposed to make small-market teams more competitive on and off the ice. What happened was that the cornerstone teams

of the league pocketed more revenue instead of spending it on salaries. Carolina or Anaheim might win the Stanley Cup, but that was no guarantee that they would be profitable.

Until NHL owners learn that hockey players are vital partners rather than adversaries, they will continue to view lockouts as an effective labormanagement tool rather than a detriment to the long-term health of the league. And until the flagship franchises recognize their struggling brethren as equal partners, the league will never reach its full potential. Yet the fans always come back, gearing up for whatever allotment of the product they’re left with after the latest labor dispute.

The reasoning behind this level of committed masochism is simple. For all its financial flaws and ineptitude in contractual negotiations, media and fan relations, the NHL still offers the highest level of professional hockey to be found anywhere in the world. The sport offers spectators a blend

Cherry and Silver Invitational Albuquerque, N.M. 4 p.m.

WHL

of physicality, speed, teamwork and individual skill that can easily translate to fans of other sports—a sort of athletic meritocracy wherein physical stature is neither an ingrained advantage nor an automatic impediment when determining a player’s rise to the top.

The latest lockout may prove to be just another holding maneuver in a long line of botched dialogue between players and owners, but the quality of the product in the rink will continue to be as high as ever. With only 48 games available to determine playoff spots instead of the standard 82, each regularseason contest will be played with greater intensity and focus. All the headaches that the NHL forces its fans to endure can’t change the fact that this could be the season you see your favorite team come out of the playoffs raising the Stanley Cup, the single greatest trophy in sports. That’s one concession that will never go to the owners.

vs.

Winterhawks vs. Lethbridge Rose Garden Arena 7 p.m.

Saturday, Jan. 19

Track and Field Cherry and Silver Invitational Albuquerque, N.M. 10 a.m.

Women’s Basketball

vs.

Vikings vs. North Dakota Peter Stott Center 2 p.m.

Men’s Basketball

@ Vikings @ North Dakota Betty Engelstad Sioux Center 12 p.m.

NBA

vs.

Strange chipped in 10 points.

They are the team leaders in both points and rebounds.

After the Bears, the Vikings will host conference newcomer North Dakota, who are 7-8 overall and 2-4 in Big Sky play. Their most recent matchup was a 64-49 road defeat to the Montana State University Bobcats. Montana State was ahead nearly the entire game before North Dakota went on an 11-3 run midway through the second half to close the gap to just nine. The Bobcats were unfazed, however, and with less than five minutes to go, stretched their lead back to double digits and held on for the win.

Tipoff for the Thursday game against Northern Colorado is scheduled for 7:30 p.m., while the Saturday matchup against North Dakota will begin at 2 p.m. Live scores and stats are available at goviks. com.

Trail Blazers vs. Milwaukee Rose Garden Arena 7 p.m.

WHL

@ Winterhawks @ Seattle ShoWare Center 7:05 p.m.

Monday, Jan. 21

Women’s Basketball

vs.

Vikings vs. Eastern Washington Peter Stott Center 7:30 p.m.

karl kuchs/VANGUARD STAFF

home stand: Angela Misa will be crucial for the Vikings this week.